Conventional classical methods of aiming at a target require aiming means having rear and front sights, normally situated on top of the barrel of the firearm. Such means are described for example in U.S. Pat. No. 6,360,471 (Stein); U.S. Pat. No. 6,058,615 (Uhlmann et al); U.S. Pat. No. 6,216,351 (Flubacher et al); and U.S. Pat. No. 6,035,539 (Hollenbach et al), which provide aiming sight solutions for firearms based on a basic idea of aligning both the rear and front sights with the barrel axis and also with the line of sight of shooter and target. However, in methods based on this principle, the shooter is required to align these two spaced apart elements in order to accurately hit the target. This aiming procedure is based on the shooter's best judgment of whether the two elements are perfectly aligned. Such judgment requires essential skills and fractions of seconds of time, which may result in hitting the target or missing the opportunity of shooting first.
A second drawback of the classical spaced apart aiming method relates to the necessity of focusing the eye on three different locations: the first being the proximal sight; the second being the distal part of the sight; and the third being the target. This is a difficult task for any healthy eye and rather impossible for short sighted shooters.
More advanced solutions are available in the form of Reflex Sights (Sometimes called Red-Dot sights), such as those being produced by Aimpoint, Meprolight, or Trijicon, for example. These sights are normally mounted on the rear upper part of the barrel. Looking through the optical part of the sight, the shooter sees a colored dot, which he has to superimpose on the target in order to hit. A similar type of these more advanced sighting systems, this time based on refractive rather than on reflective principles, is provided by GB 2154018 (Cannon). Being friendly for use, they are very expensive, cumbersome systems and which, while looking through the optical part tend to hide a substantial part of the view surrounding the target.
US 2007/107292 (Bar-Yona et al); and U.S. Pat. No. 5,878,503 (Howe) provide aiming devices for guns, including a lenticular component that is seen by the user as having a first color when the aim line has a desired orientation and has at least one second color when the aim line does not have that desired orientation. The optical principle here is based on geometrically locating a shining dot at the focal point of a lens, so that the lens displays to the shooter a first color when his line of sight is directed to this shining focal point, and observes another color when the focal point of the lens falls on the background of the shining dot.
The main drawback of these systems is that they do not provide the shooter with the option for gradually fine-tuning the direction of the gun. This is a consequence of the fact that the replacement of the first color by the second one is total and immediate. This system is actually a kind of trade-off between two contradicting features: a rapid target acquisition on the one hand and sensibility to the color change (for accurate shoots) on the other hand. In other words, if the focal length of the lens is initially increased in order to get a more sensitive color change, the shooter does not perceive any color change until the firearm is almost perfectly aimed at the target. On the other hand, if the focal length is diminished, the color change occurs more gradually, but the sensibility to angular change is diminished.